European Champion Dang QIU left his mark on the German Championships in Nuremberg as he did in Saarbrücken last year. The world number nine was the first player to successfully defend his singles title since Timo BOLL announced his retirement from national events four years ago. With his sixth successive victory in doubles with his partner Benedikt DUDA QIU even advanced to the “man of the weekend”.
In the women’s singles Sabine WINTER third at the Munich European Championships outshone the competition despite the teenage generation that was pushing forward. The 30-year-old repeated her singles success from 2022. WINTER also won gold in doubles with her partner Sophia KLEE who is eleven years younger and set a new record with her seventh title in this competition which she had previously shared with Nicole STRUSE. Like a year ago KLEE’S Bundesliga clubmate Yuan WAN and Cedric MEISSNER secured the title in the mixed event.
Qiu confirmed his status as Germany’s number one in the world rankings in absence of his national team colleagues Timo BOLL and Dimitrij OVTCHAROV. Patrick FRANZISKA is still waiting for his first national singles title after his 2-4 defeat in the final against 26-year-old QIU. “It was absolutely the expected difficult match in the final. Even after I took the lead Patrick kept coming back and it was close again ” said Dang QIU. “In the sixth game I started 5-0 at the end it’s 7-6 again – except for the second they were all close games.”
In the women’s events young talents dominated the action after the cancellations of top players Ying HAN Xiaona SHAN and Nina MITTELHAM apart from WINTER. The 16-year-old European Youth Champion Annett KAUFMANN was seeded first and reached the final where Sabine WINTER did not give her much of a chance in a 4-0 defeat. “I didn’t expect a 4-0 win. I had hoped that I could keep the match close. I’m incredibly happy that I was able to defend this title ” says WINTER.
Sophia KLEE’S entry into the semi-finals confirmed the strong impression of the young players. The 13-year-old talents Josephina NEUMANN and Koharu ITAGAKI made history as the youngest medallists ever by surprisingly advancing to the doubles final. They had defeated the title holders Chantal MANTZ and Yuan WAN in the semi-finals.
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The finals
Mixed Doubles
Cedric Meissner/Yuan Wan – Pekka Pelz/Annett Kaufmann 3-2 (-7 0 -7 9 5)
Women’s Doubles
Sophia Klee/Sabine Winter – Koharu Itagaki/Josephina Neumann 3-1 (-5 3 6 6)
Men’s Doubles
Benedikt Duda/Dang Qiu – Kirill Fadeev/Mathias Hübgen 3-0 (5 7 5)
Women’s Singles
Sabine Winter – Annett Kaufmann 4-0 (6 8 12 10)
Men’s Singles
Dang Qiu – Patrick Franziska 4-2 (7 1 -10 9 -9 8)
